Bumpy ride, but Qantas enjoys happy landing

QANTAS has settled one of its most acrimonious industrial
stand-offs after agreeing to a three-year enterprise bargaining
agreement with maintenance unions.

After 10 months of on and off talks, Qantas said it was
"pleased" with the agreement with the Australian Manufacturing
Workers Union and the Australian Workers Union.

The deal will see Qantas' AMWU and AWU members receive a 9 per
cent pay rise over three years to December 31, 2008. The rises will
be backdated to when the previous EBA expired in December.

Both sides in the dispute were claiming victory over the
agreement, which has yet to be filed with the Office of Employment
Advocate.

With union members agreeing to the deal on Monday, AMWU
assistant national secretary Glenn Thompson said the agreement was
a "far better position than the aggressive agenda" Qantas had taken
into the talks.

Qantas has agreed to scrap its contentious plan to have
maintenance workers build up a "bank" of overtime pay, and be paid
it in lieu of overtime pay in quiet periods.

Mr Thompson said this would have amounted to an average $850 a
year pay cut for members.

Instead, unions have agreed to have workers build up rostered
days off in busy times and use them in quiet periods, when there
are few planes in Qantas hangars.

It is believed the agreement also allows Qantas to seek to
perform more "third-party" maintenance work for other airlines.

Qantas' head of engineering, David Cox, said the deal would
enable the airline to achieve its key aim.

"What Qantas wanted to achieve was flexibility to manage
workloads more effectively through the normal cycle of peaks and
troughs," he said.

"Our people in this area prefer to use an RDO bank," he said,
noting the result was much the same as what Qantas wanted to
achieve through its "overtime" bank. The use of RDO banks is
widespread in the transport industry.

The AMWU and AWU's stance against Qantas was weakened in March
with the introduction of the Federal Government's industrial
relations laws, which resulted in the unions having to call off
"low-level" industrial action against the airline.

But Qantas could face an equally tense period next month when it
begins EBA talks with the Licenced Aircraft Maintenance Engineers
Association.

ALAEA federal secretary Stephen Purvinas said his union would
look at "other options" if talks were not concluded when the EBA
ends on December 31. He would not say what the options were.

Another issue set to reignite tensions is Qantas' pending
decision on whether to close its Tullamarine 737 heavy maintenance
base. This could result in the loss of 1000 jobs. There is
speculation the decision could have been delayed until next
month.

Qantas shares rose 2.2 per cent or 8¢ to $3.72
yesterday.

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